The Curious Incident of the Dragon in the Night-time
by SpaceAnJL
Summary: AU. A tale from the World of Weirdcraft. Because I have no self-control.


Quite how he had come to be sharing a cave with a petulant, over-grown lizard, Hamwise Jamjar (Jammo to his friends) was never quite sure.

He'd fought in the King's Army in the Southern Desert, where the strange, savage tribes still drowned giant worms in ceremonial vats of mezcal (even now, he will wake from nightmares, with the eerie chant of 'te-ki-la, te-ki-la' in his ears) until a well-aimed spear had seen him invalided home. Ex-Army healers of the halfling persuasion not being in great demand, he'd drifted along, eking out his meagre funds, until a chance meeting in the tavern with an old friend. Mikkel Stampface was a dwarf, and they had trained together back at the Temple of Bartimaeus. There had been quaffing, and singing, and more quaffing, and somewhere in there, he had complained about the cost of living in dingy tavern rooms. Which had led to him following his friend down a narrow flight of steps into the vaults beneath the Temple.

"He's been looking for someone to share living costs with. He's got some long unpronounceable name, so we just tend to call him Smug."

There is a leathery, slithering rattle, and then the shadows in the corner of the room unfold themselves. And a great armoured head comes swooping down, to fix a pale eye on him.

"You have been in the Southern Desert, I perceive." A deep voice, well-modulated. (For some reason, Jammo finds himself applying the word 'smoky', and then tries very hard not to.)

"Right," Says Jammo, feeling slightly light-headed. "So, you're a dragon, jolly good."

"If you must know, a wizard did it." The creature sounds supremely uninterested, prodding a claw into a crack in the floor.

"Well, if you meddle in their affairs..."

"I wouldn't call turning me into a dragon particularly subtle." Then it, he, mutters something that sounds like "Bloody Mycroft."

00000000

The Lord Mycroft is tall and thin, and Jammo is quite sure that he's probably more cold-blooded, and actually blinks less, than his currently draconic brother. He seems placidly accepting of the fact that the halfling healer is currently installed in the front half of the cave. For a given value of grabbing Jammo off the street one day, anyway. A sleek black carriage, with disturbingly quiet horses, had just stopped beside him. Jammo was fairly sure that the woman concentrating on her crystal ball was not completely human, which hadn't stopped him trying to chat her up, though she ignored him. A tense stand-off in a suspiciously clean and echoing warehouse later, they had established that Jammo was not going to wait until Smug was sleeping and then leg it with cups, jewels or any other items of treasure. Nor that he was intent on poking anything sharp into any vulnerable areas of underbelly. "Oh, you meant Smug." Jammo had smiled, sharp and fast, and suddenly every inch the warrior. "No, I like _him_." The Lord Mycroft had sniffed, twitched and then had him deposited back in front of the cave with suspicious haste.

He's not clear exactly how or why Smug became a dragon, or why he's not keen on turning back, but he wonders if the happy thought of maybe sitting on his brother one day might not play a part.

So, there's Jammo, and Smug, and the Lady Martha ("Not your hostage, dear") who fetches tea. The Lady Martha had been married to a particularly unpleasant knight, who had been under the impression that being muscular and heavily armoured and possessed of a big axe gave him the right to do anything he pleased, including slaying monsters and stealing treasure.

"And how did that work out?"

"Badly." Smug drums a set of long, sharp talons on the cavern floor, and blows a wisp of smoke. Jammo thinks about speed, manoeuvrability and the melting point of steel.

"...Yes. Well."

The Lady Martha had been quite happy to live in a nice, dry cave, with what amounted to a large central heating and inbuilt security system. She spends a lot of her time trying to prevent the overspill of Smug's hoard from encroaching too far into her living quarters. Most dragons collect gold and gems, Smug seems to collect broken weapons and body parts. Jammo is more than slightly alarmed by the discovery that he'd done this _before_ he became large and scaly, too. The handmaiden Molly, who works in the Temple, still brings him the odd squishy parcel, and hangs around hopefully waiting to be abducted. (Jammo is fairly sure that she's not a ghoul. Really.) Luckily for his peace of mind, Smug doesn't eat the offerings, though he does prod them around a bit.

"Well, of course I don't eat people. I know where they've been."

No, Smug eats livestock. Bought and paid for livestock that Jammo has to herd up to the cave, and he feels oddly guilty sometimes, but really, once you've tried to sleep through the sound of a hungry dragon's stomach, what's the odd goat or two?

And then, there's Captain Gregory, the tired-eyed watchman, who stomps into the cave one day, pushing up the visor of his battered helmet, with a tale of strange magics, locked rooms and violent death. Smug actually bounces up and down, which would be cute in a puppy, and is frankly disturbing in a heavily-armoured killing machine.

"Come along, Jammo, the game is afoot!"

Jammo sighs, and scrambles out of the cave after a couple of tons of happily gambolling dragon. He feels a sudden lifting of his spirits, an old familiar battlefield buzz. No, he's not sure how he came to be here, but it sure beats any alternative.


End file.
